October 2011

18 October 2011

So over a year ago I essentially turned my entire life over to a project called Brooklyn Babylon. It's an urban fable about a master carpenter named Lev Bezdomni, who is comissioned by the supreme local authority, the Mayor of Brooklyn, to build the carousel that will crown the tallest building in the world, which is being constructed in the heart of Brooklyn.

My co-creator is the amazing visual artist Danijel Zezelj, who has hand-painted the thousands and thousands of indiviudal images that go into the projected animation. He will also be painting live during the production on an immense 40-foot wide canvas. I've written an hour-long continuous score for this piece, over 275 pages of music (see above). I've been in heavy rehearsal on this with Secret Society since mid-September.

Brooklyn Babylon is a fully-staged, fully-integrated peformance, with live music, live painting, live video, projected animation, lighting, and costumes — and trust me, we have sweated and toiled over every single detail. I've never attempted anything even remotely like this before, but I am incredibly proud of the work Danijel and I have done to make this happen.

If you have any interest at all in my music -- which, like, why else would you be reading this? -- then you should really see this show.